“Poison you! don’t you know the Yankees are our best friends?”

“Well, ef dat’s so, I’se mighty glad, cause de woods is full ob dem.”

“Now, Tom, I thought you had cut your eye-teeth long enough not to let them Anderson boys fool you.  Tom, you must not think because a white man says a thing, it must be so, and that a colored man’s word is no account ’longside of his.  Tom, if ever we get our freedom, we’ve got to learn to trust each other and stick together if we would be a people.  Somebody else can read the papers as well as Marse Tom and Frank.  My ole Miss knows I can read the papers, an’ she never tries to scare me with big whoppers ’bout the Yankees.  She knows she can’t catch ole birds with chaff, so she is just as sweet as a peach to her Bobby.  But as soon as I get a chance I will play her a trick the devil never did.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll leave her.  I ain’t forgot how she sold my mother from me.  Many a night I have cried myself to sleep, thinking about her, and when I get free I mean to hunt her up.”

“Well, I ain’t tole you all.  De gemman said he war ’cruiting for de army; dat Massa Linkum hab set us all free, an’ dat he wanted some more sogers to put down dem Secesh; dat we should all hab our freedom, our wages, an’ some kind ob money.  I couldn’t call it like he did.”

“Bounty money,” said Robert.

“Yes, dat’s jis’ what he called it, bounty money.  An’ I said dat I war in for dat, teeth and toe-nails.”

Robert Johnson’s heart gave a great bound.  Was that so?  Had that army, with freedom emblazoned on its banners, come at last to offer them deliverance if they would accept it?  Was it a bright, beautiful dream, or a blessed reality soon to be grasped by his willing hands?  His heart grew buoyant with hope; the lightness of his heart gave elasticity to his step and sent the blood rejoicingly through his veins.  Freedom was almost in his grasp, and the future was growing rose-tinted and rainbow-hued.  All the ties which bound him to his home were as ropes of sand, now that freedom had come so near.

When the army was afar off, he had appeared to be light-hearted and content with his lot.  If asked if he desired his freedom, he would have answered, very naively, that he was eating his white bread and believed in letting well enough alone; he had no intention of jumping from the frying-pan into the fire.  But in the depths of his soul the love of freedom was an all-absorbing passion; only danger had taught him caution.  He had heard of terrible vengeance being heaped upon the heads of some who had sought their freedom and failed in the attempt.  Robert knew that he might abandon hope if he incurred the wrath of men whose overthrow was only a question of time.  It would have been madness and folly for him to have attempted an insurrection against slavery, with the words of McClellan ringing in his ears:  “If you rise I shall put you down with an iron hand,” and with the home guards ready to quench his aspirations for freedom with bayonets and blood.  What could a set of unarmed and undisciplined men do against the fearful odds which beset their path?